We’ve all heard them. We’ve all accepted them as norma“I’m honing in on my college choices”.“Let’s hone in on vacation plans”.
“He honed in on the most suitable dog breed for his lifestyle”.
Etc., etc., etc.
What was probably intended was “homing in”, focusing in, more than “honing in”, which more accurately indicates sharpening or refining. It looks like “homing in on” and “honing down” have been kluged together into “hone in on”. But don’t expect to win any popularity contests at parties by correcting this subtlety. You can’t fight it, and you run the risk of being labeled a semantic snob. It’s a stretch, but I suppose you can “refine” a decision too.
Language morphs. Consider the word “irregardless”, which is, surprisingly, in the dictionary. It’s practically replaced “regardless” , a more accurate choice. And then there is “for free”, a common misnomer. The word “free” suffices for the idea. “For” is unneeded but it keeps popping up. Does it matter? Probably not.
Things can get amusing with those of us whose first language is not English, especially with idioms. My Cuban friend was wont to substitute “He got wing of it” for “He got wind of it”, when she heard of someone discovering a secret. We thought it was pretty cute and never let on that we noticed. My German stepfather used to say “She let the sack out of the bag” instead of “let the cat out of the bag” when someone leaked a confidence. Again, we stifled the giggle. He would have been so embarrassed.
As my son recently noted, etymology and entomology are very different, but easily confused. Moral? Don’t get your merds wixed. But let’s give Grace to others as much as possible. If we are communicating and caring, that’s what matters.